Blog Archive

April 29, 2013

Hallo, Holland!


Zaanse Schans

As per their website, this is one of Holland's top tourist destinations. They have windmills, museums, traditional crafts, shops, restaurants, and mini-cruise. Since this was only a comfort stop, we only got to see some of the windmills, traditional crafts and shops. Since it was almost lunch when we arrived there, we had to squeeze in our toilet break, souvenir shopping, picture taking and snack. I wish we had more time here as there were many things to see.

weeeeee

Volendam


This is a fishing village and shopping street. They have souvenir shops, studios offering pictures dressed in traditional holland attire, and places to eat seafood. Their specialty food is the eel but we weren't able to try it. We settled for a seafood platter instead in one of the restaurants (Verse Vlaanse Frites). Again, I wish we had more time to look around.


Cheese and Clogs Factory

As the name of the place indicates, we were shown a demo of how cheese and clogs are made. After the demo, we were able to taste the cheese samplers with raspberry wine and try out some clogs. We bought the ham flavored cheese and a bottle of raspberry wine in their Irene Hueve shop. Feeling shala na kami ngaun.:))


the next stop in the factory is the clog shack with its clog making demo. Clogs in less than 10minutes!
and now my turn. :))
boink it!
screw it!
done it! :))


Clogs!


raspberry wine and cheese tasting


Cheese! 

Hotel De Rijper

This hotel is located in a somehow remote area outside of Amsterdam. The exterior looks like a barn and when we look out our window, we can see a horse roaming the fields and we saw various farm animals on our way there. You get the picture of how "farm-y" it is. Our hotel room and bathroom are quite spacious and are handicap friendly suitable for my "temporarily handicapped" husband. bwehehe! There was a reclineable "hospital" bed (aside from the double bed) and bar handles on the toilet.

Since we still have a tour of Amsterdam that night, we had an early dinner at their dining area. Their bar area/reception also sells postcards and stamps and you can leave with them to send it out. They are also the only accommodation that has cup noodles on the breakfast buffet.

Amsterdam


It was Michel our coach driver's last day with the tour so our guide reserved a different bus and driver on our way to Amsterdam. Our expat guide showed us the Red Light District on our walking tour. She told us not to take pictures of the "workers" as someone may throw your camera to the river or say bad words to you (at the least).

 After that, it was already our free time. We met with our friend Manny who showed us some nice spots to take photos and treated us to some place nice. It was also Queen's Day so I bought an orange crown as a souvenir. Apparently, orange is the color of royalty here so there were orange decorations everywhere.:D 
Hail to my queen!
 Most museums were also closed due to the holiday so we weren't able to go to Anne Frank's house. If we had more time, we would have gone to the sex museum but because of the holiday, public buses to the hotel were not guaranteed to arrive so it was safer to ride the reserved bus at the meeting point at 11pm. Also, we might have a hard time finding the bus stop nearest the hotel being a remote and unlighted area.


Twilight Zone

Central Station At the hotel, we were supposed to celebrate a birthday with one of the people in the tour group but was not aware that we were invited.:))

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